


The Reciprocal IQ Alternative

by Erisette



Category: Big Bang Theory
Genre: F/M, Gen, Genderbending, Genderswap, Roleswap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-20
Updated: 2013-01-20
Packaged: 2017-11-26 05:01:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/646851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erisette/pseuds/Erisette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Penny is three years old when she realizes that she is smarter than her brother and sister.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Reciprocal IQ Alternative

**Author's Note:**

> The seed for this ficlet came from http://renisanz.deviantart.com/art/Penelope-Shelly-120033806. It occurred to me to wonder; what would these characters be like if Penny had the IQ of 187 and Sheldon...didn't? They'd still be THEM, even with the differing levels of intelligence. Possibly a bit over-ambitious for a first fic in this fandom, but the idea wouldn't leave me alone. Role-switching and gender-bending both.Thanks go to untherapy for the beta. Originally posted on livejournal.

Penny is three years old when she realizes that she is smarter than her brother and sister.

 

She shows off once - Emma has been biting her lip over the slowly evolving second grade homework for an hour when Penny shambles over and tells her all the answers in a high, childish voice. Emma rolls her eyes at her, but when the next few problems turn out just like her baby sister said she looks over to meet the smug smile with its missing baby tooth.

"Lucky guess," she says scornfully, and Penny opens her mouth to retort; but she isn't just math-smart, she's people-smart too, and she sees that her sister is hurt. She doesn't know why--isn't developed enough to work out the complicated tangle of jealousy and inadequacy and fear of looking stupid, but she knows what Emma looks like when she's been hurt.

"Yep. Lucky guess." She smiles her very best smile and gives her sister a soppy kiss on the cheek, before going back to her paper full of stick-figure horses that were slowly but surely turning into unicorns. 

***

When Penny starts kindergarten, by dint of careful observation she learns that none of the kids there are smarter than her either. She doesn't want to hurt any more feelings, so she makes friends, and paints pictures, and does all the assignments with not a peep of complaint, no matter how boring they are.

"Penny, you read so well! I'm very proud of you."

She smiles up at Ms. Ethridge, who really is very nice, and has pretty hair. "Thank you very much," she says. The next student has their turn reading "Red Fish, Blue Fish", and she entertains herself by picturing a progression of increasingly elaborate fish in what is, though she didn't know it had a name, a Fibonacci Sequence.

She learns the value of visual encyclopedias, that have pretty pictures that any five-year-old would like, and interesting information that Penny likes.

The baby curl, sadly, falls out of her hair...but at least she's getting taller.

***

When she is thirteen, after a career of being labeled "intelligent but unambitious, Mr. and Mrs. Lane" and draining the public library dry, Penny snaps. It takes all her powers of persuasion and a machete-like approach to red tape, but Penny is not in the habit of failing and gets her high school diploma straightened out in six months. 

Her first BA follows in a similar amount of time. 

***

In the next few years she collects several masters degrees; there is just too much interesting stuff in the world, and she doesn't have the heart to restrict herself to one topic. 

The MA in math comes first, of course, because that is so easy; then botany (it reminded her of home) and chemistry (making drugs and blowing stuff up was endlessly entertaining). Her next degree is interrupted by a terrible growth spurt that leaves the students she TAs for looking at her in a very jail-bait-y way, but she rallies her spirits tolerably and finishes the physics masters.

By this point she is old enough to legally buy alcohol (in Europe, at least) and becomes reluctantly convinced that she should probably get that doctorate out of the way. After much waffling (her friends were distressingly unsympathetic), she decides on Physics--it's got enough math that it's kind of like a twofer, and the elegance of the equations and theorems appeals to her.

She applies for research positions at several universities, and eventually chooses CalTech because, duh, California.

***

Apparently professors have a kind of oh-crap-here-they-come quasi-party at the beginning of the school year, and Penny finds herself hanging around the buffet and determining whether she wants to be the life of the party or not. She rebuffs several advances with varying degrees of politeness and finds herself resorting to the more adventurous punch on the right end of the table.

"Sometimes," a wry voice says at her elbow, "I think I've fallen into a parallel reality where it is still considered astonishing for a woman to have a brain." Penny looks over at a disheveled dark-haired girl, with thick-rimmed glasses and a slightly nervous smile.

Penny grins back at her. "I know, scandalous, right?" She eyes the other scientist speculatively and, as Dr. Lane is wont to do, makes a quick decision. "Hey, are you just starting here too?"

By the end of the party she and Dr. Hofstadter are a little drunk, incipient roommates, and well on the way to being good friends.

***

One Saturday afternoon they are walking slowly up the stairs, deeply involved in a conversation that had started out as an analysis of the summer fashion lineup and had somehow turned into a debate about the feasibility of wormholes when they reach their own floor and stop in surprise. Apartment 4b has apparently been rented out, and there is a profusion of neatly labeled boxes spilling cornucopia-style from the door. They step over the most far-flung outriders and peer in the door (hey, it's open, right?). 

There's a man, surrounded by half-unpacked belongings and a battered armchair, his back to them as he paints a very respectable rendition of the view from outside his window. Penny looks him up and down critically. "Poor thing certainly can't dress," she says and Marie snorts a little. 

Maybe he hears that sound, for he turns around and looks surprised. "Oh! Hello." There's the faintest twang of the south in his voice when he rubs his nose and says apologetically, "I didn't hear you."

Penny makes the introductions, since Marie is half-way in love already, and invites him to come have a drink at their place.

The first thing he comments on are the whiteboards and Penny shows off a little. He listens intently and cocks his head to the side. "I have no idea what that means, but it sounds very impressive." He smiles, a quick shy expression with his lower lip caught between his teeth. (her roommate makes a funny choked noise from across the room that Penny deliberately ignores) "The only thing I ever thought was interesting about math was the Golden Ratio, and how it's found in spiral galaxies and flowers and a nautilus shell..." he trails off, picking up a dry-erase marker, and an empty corner of the whiteboard quickly gains a little spiral shell with a confused hermit crab peeking out of it. He peers at his design, seemingly forgetting that there were others in the room for a moment, then nods in satisfaction. He turns back to the amused Ph.D. beside him and shrugs. "Nautiluses are less interesting than hermit crabs."

"I have a board too," Marie pipes up, squeaking slightly, and the man--Sheldon Cooper, wasn't it?--turns to give her board the same un-ironic attention he had given everything else. 

"Fascinating," he says sincerely, and cocks a puzzled eyebrow at Penny. "Are women that are both genius and attractive common in California?" From any other man, this would be flirtation of the first order, but he says it with such frankness in his innocent blue eyes that she knows not to take it as such. (There's also, it must be admitted, something disarming about the streak of green paint across one high cheekbone)

"I don't know that I'd say 'common'. There are several of us at CalTech."

"Well, that's excellent."

Marie squints at him, scientific curiosity momentarily overcoming her flustered attraction. "Really? Most men are intimidated by smart women."

He looks genuinely surprised. "Why should I be intimidated? You are far less physically imposing than I am. Besides, I can't do that," he points at all the boards, "but that doesn't mean I am any less impressive than you. Can you paint a respectable portrait in under five minutes? Can you play 'Die Fleidermaus' on a keyboard with four of the keys broken? Can you quote all the dialog from any Firefly episode?"

They sounded like rhetorical questions, but he seems to be waiting for a reply. "No," Penny says, very amused now.

Sheldon shrugs expressively. "You clearly have the advantage in advanced degrees, but that's doesn't make me your inferior." He had done that thing again, where he said something that should have been offensive if he hadn't said it like it was an unambiguous and noncontroversial fact.

Penny finds herself intrigued. 

Over the course of the conversation she learns that he is dreamy and thoughtful, abstracted and distracted, focused and sly and completely unselfconscious. 

When he leaves, Marie lingers against the closed door for a long moment. "Our babies will be both tall and smart," she says abruptly, fervently. Penny laughs, not unkindly.

"You're welcome to dream, sweetie, but I'm pretty sure he still thinks that babies magically appear when a mommy and a daddy love each other very much."

Later that evening when she goes to clear the whiteboard she hesitates; the little hermit crab peers out at her from the board, curious and unafraid and really rather adorable. "Hnn," she says, and leaves it be.

***


End file.
